Much more to Russia story than the Trump Tower in Moscow

"Everybody knew" about the Trump Tower in Moscow. The trump said that before boarding his plane for Buenos Aires yesterday. Naturally, it was not true.

Everybody did not know about it. Some people had read about it. But the Trump people always said it was "fake news" and there was nothing to it. They went to great lengths to explain how Michael Cohen had never been in that part of the world and it was "another" Michael Cohen that was being confused with him.

But, a lot of stuff that people were discussing was in the "Steele dossier", written by a former MI6 officer. It is becoming more and more credible with the passage of time.

The Moscow Trump Tower is a big story because of the lies and deception revolving around it. Everyone in the Trump circle wanted to keep it secret. Why?

Because there was a lot more going on with Russia than just the Trump Tower in Moscow. There was the big oil deals that were being discussed by Carter Page. There was the meeting in the Seychelles with Erik Prince and Russian representative to discuss nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia. There was plenty of money to be made and to be laundered thru Trump properties in the US.

There was a reason everyone in the Trump circle was lying about Russia connections. And it was not just the Trump Tower in Moscow. There was a complete criminal enterprise between Donald Trump and his Russian friends, including Vladimir Putin.

We will soon discover that the Trump Tower in Moscow was not "canceled" at all. It was simply put on a different time schedule, for the benefit of Putin and Trump's political interests. After all, Putin was attempting to get the sanctions lifted, as had been promised by General Flynn and others in the Trump campaign.

When Jared Kushner attempted to put together a secret communication channel between the White House and the Kremlin, thru the Russian embassy in Washington, it was fairly obvious that some nefarious stuff was going on.

1. Yep

36. It is simple: Trump is a filthy traitor who is willing to sell out his country.

That isn't the real problem. The major problem is the Republican Party's campaign to demonize Democrats as evil unpatriotic, ungodly sexual deviates who are destroying the nation's morals. It is a simple, but effective campaign they have waged by their dominance of the radio broadcast system and FOX News.

Nothing, absolutely nothing that Trump does will deflect them from their lockstep support. His boasting of the sexual abuse of women, fraudulent business practices, discrimination, pathological lying, bilking people with a phony university, the list is virtual unlimited has not cost him any substantive support of the Republicans.

The question that I have is can Mueller put an end to this disaster? Every agency of the government that is vitally important for the function of government is in chaos. This situation can not be allowed to continue. The end result could be catastrophic leading to the establishment of an authoritarian presidency. Yes, it can happen here!

42. nobody anticipates a blue tsunami

We were close to having to live under permanent GOPer rule. Demands for paper trails and a blue wave too big to hold back by the cheats that were in place are what saved us, so far. Putin and oligarchs haven't quit yet, and neither should we.

6. Yes. When the Repub house intelligence committee shut down

its Russia investigation, "Nothing here, folks," our Democrats on the committee published a lengthy document detailing many lines of inquiry that weren't pursued, including the names of something like 70+ people and organizations the Repubs protected from scrutiny.

Come January 3, the most significant congressional investigation will shift from the Republican controlled senate to the Democratic house, and that "investigation" gets not just reopened but mostly begun. The feeling is that the Democratic committees will take care not to get in the way of the Mueller investigation.

This is all bad news for Putin, and isn't that a happy thought? It's likely the sanctions already passed by strong bipartisan majorities, though not imposed by Trump, are only the beginning as more comes out. He's been arrogantly overreaching hard, as many of his fellow oligarchs feared all along. Reportedly his support among the Russian people has dropped considerably also as wellbeing continues to decline. There's talk that the EU could rethink allowing increased natural gas dependence on Russia. Too soon to imagine he's going down, but our wheel is turning on him also.

8. I keep pushing this;

All of this corruption that is going on would not be happening were it not for the corporate controlled M$M being complicit. The M$M doesn't push right wing narratives for ratings, it does it because they are complicit, that "is" its agenda.

Democrats struggle because of the complicit media. Just think about this. Sunday school teacher Jimmy Carter had to sell off his beloved peanut farm just to avoid a conflict of interest. Now compare that with what is going on with Trump.

22. Me, I blame the electorate, heavily the right of course,

but I definitely save some for people on the left who make willing tools as well.

Not all media hide what's happening. Seems to me enough info is always out for good people to get excited about. That more people aren't more honest and responsible, imo, is their own fault, not that of a relatively few at the top who get the money and power that corrupted citizens allow.

For the rest of those citizens who set aside intellect and probity to so helpfully screw themselves over, the payback of their self corruption is the pleasure of feeding their craving for a bad, typically authoritarian leader to follow and a partisan tribe to indulge dishonest political biases with.

But there ARE over 300 million of us, Watoos, and maybe 60 thousand get big money and power from corruption. Those would get nothing without a complicit self-created servant class.

Btw, on the plus side, it's always been this way yet democracy has always not just survived but advanced through the efforts of a sufficient minority of intelligent and responsible citizens.

Name a subject, give me a narrative to give my example. How about health care? What's the narrative across our country? Health care for all is off the table, why is that? Why do poor people call single payer health care that "bad word" Socialism? Are these millions of poor people without health care or without decent health care complicit?
Why is the narrative that single payer health care is too expensive, we can't afford it, the narrative across all of the M$M? When the truth is that we pay double for health care than other nations and statistics just came in that our life expectancy for 2017 went down, went down. That is unheard of. Have you tried talking to a poor Republican about health care for all? What is their argument against it? Why are they arguing against their own best interests. Because they have been brainwashed by the complicit corporate controlled right wing M$M.

34. MSNBC feeds an appetite for a product created to do just that.

No one forces people to crave and seek out media deceptions. That comes from within. Same for all the other purveyors of political discussion as entertainment and/or rings set in noses.

Of course, there will always be those who rush to profit and use for inimical purposes those who set themselves up for victimization. I'm not excusing them in the least. But to fix that problem by fixing ourselves. No demand, no profit.

I recommend those who think we're all just innocents thrashing on the hooks of evil manipulators go read about victim mentality. Lots of stuff on the web. People who slide into that resentful trap don't really get to shrug off their responsibility to do their duty as citizens, though. We all own our own.

35. I agree.

Let's see where the narrative goes now. We are in a very dangerous place. Between now ans when the new congress comes in, there will be a a skeleton crew in Washington while everyone is gone for the Holiday break. He can shut the government down... invent some crisis to declare martial law...dissolve congress and tell them not to come back at all. Not saying he will...but he could.

If the MSM wanted him gone he would be gone. They burned down Dr. Dean for a football whoop.... they were instrumental in taking out Al Franken.
Never forget.

10. Well said, but scary.

People should know I have a burr up my behind for the corporate controlled M$M . It has enabled all of this corruption and misled people into voting against their own best interests.

I laugh when people say that msnbc is liberal. I remember back when Dylan Ratigan had a 4PM time slot, he stated exactly what you are getting at. I tried not to miss his show. He talked about crony capitalism and was explaining it so that dummies like me could understand what was going on. It didn't take long for the msnbc masters to fire Ratigan, just like they fired Phil Donahue when he was railing against going into Iraq and Tweety was gung ho to go in. Tweety has a 7PM time slot yet today. Not going to get into Keith Olbermann, he was a real truth teller, he had to get axed fast.

The M$M is a true villain, if it were fair and balanced we would be looking at different outcomes.

9. The energy sector

This is the reason Rex was appointed SoS - his contacts and experience in the energy sector. Then Rex could get Cheetolini and himself some of the energy sector cash flow, as in, "Psst! Want us to continue to be your friend ... er, "ally" - and let you buy nice big military toys from us? Want to beat up the Shia? Then you gotta cut The Big Guy and me in on the oil action."

The reason most people that are rural types support Cheetolini is because they don't know how to recognize mobsters. If they happen to think the word mobster, they think of some old-time movie and Elliot Ness. For those of us that grew up in big cities, we've been seeing and hearing about mobsters our whole lives.

These international deals, pending or active, are dealing with fossil fuels, a long-obsolete method of energy production that will make the planet uninhabitable within a century. And it's done for greed-- a greed that will mean nothing when the planet dies. No one will escape a dying planet. And so far, no one seems to be escaping the road to oblivion.

Our scientists have known for over 50 years that fossil fuel consumption is destroying the livability of our planet. Buckminster Fuller and others had written extensively about this problem as it was first being discovered. Fuller presented the dilemma facing our species and our ecosphere: switch to unlimited, renewable energy sources or face global catastrophe. Fuller always emphasized that staying with the fatal system of fossil fuel production is a species-wide choice. The ONLY reasons for continuing with fossil fuels are greed, power, and money. And it now appears that those characteristics will prove to be fatal for our species.

29. Of course they care!

They care that the $5billion+ a year cashflow from bribes in the energy bidniss will stop. After all, it's going right into their pockets, so they'll do anything to preserve that.

A lot of really revealing, eye-opening shit happened yesterday. They're scrambling today, as the plan has now been detected and the scale of the breach is beyond their control. When a government like Germany - whose Steur tax agents are quite brutal - investigates you, there are simply too many people involved to bribe your way out of it.

So the Grifters and Oligarchs Party would seem to be toast, along with all of its "rooskie breast feeding" members. Personally, I'm looking forward to Nunes being referred to as Good & Plenty by all of those Big Men in genpop.

15. Our country was stolen from us, the American people

for the majority the country was simply stolen, for the minority they were conned by one of the best conmen in the business into relinquishing our country. This theft was done with the full complicity of the GOP. We are now left with a party system of two where one is composed completely of traitors and the other not entirely sure of how to handle the situation. The entire power infrastructure as it currently exists in America must be dismantled and destroyed. From the Supreme court to the local school board member the taint of evil is too great to allow the system as it currently exist to endure. Already too many have suffered, and yes even lost their lives by way of the evil that currently grips the reigns of power in our nation. This evil that has risen in our nation can not now nor ever again be allowed to breathe fresh air or see the light. It is up to us to demand justice, it is up to us to mete out justice. We the people must rise. We the people must take back our nation. And it is we the people who must insure such evil can never rise again in our nation. Perhaps we may once again become a "shining city on the hill", this time truly shining from the core, instead of a faux veneer that has covered our land before. But if this is to take place, if our republic is to rise again and be a shining model of what humanity can be and achieve together, we must be ready to take back our country and never again lose hold of it.

39. Preach, brother or sister...

I happen to like MSNBC, (they are the only source that has gotten me through this turdface horror show) although I do frequently hear platitudes, middle of the road -ism, blah blah.

But there has to be so much truth being told that it is inescapable.

When the majority of the people finally get it, they will be willing to water the tree of freedom, if necessary (metaphorically speaking, of course). Hopefully we will use prudent gardening through the proper means, rather than spraying roundup on everything in sight.

As it is, we are being provoked to the point of someone, on either side of the equation, snapping, and taking it out on the other side, and the war is started.

Preferably the only watering needed would be the sacrifice of all those complicit, receiving jail time.

16. What is most difficult to understand...

...is the relationship of all the different threads of communications initiated by both Russian interests and the Trump cabal...

All the talk about the Moscow Trump Tower was taking place during 2015 and 2016...right up until June of 2016 but during that same month or shortly thereafter, there was the Trump Tower Manhattan meeting to discuss dirt on Hillary...

but Pompodopolis, Page, Erik Prince, and Kushner were or had already made separate attempts to develop a back channel.

why?

This was not like any coordinated effort. It was some kind of a "shotgun" approach ... it was amateurish...it was key-stone-cops...Rube Goldberg ...slapstick comedy ...

Almost everybody involved thought they were the kingpin of making Russian contacts...

33. True for either Trump or Putin n/t

19. That panic attack and scared shitless look on Donnie's face...

where he abruptly left the tree lighting ceremony? The concern his cold wife actually showed him for the first time? We all know that Putin has had many people killed. Did someone tip Donnie off that there was a price on his head and it was coming soon?

24. Some of their worst nightmares...

Are wrapped around the fear of The Dems releasing the transcripts of hearings they've already held to Mueller.

I'll bet there is some culpabiblity hidden in there.

In small town America, where 'corruption' is some car dealer wrangling a random business license out, the amount of corruption that can be generated in Wash DC is kind of incomprehensible. They see it, more or less, but their answer is that 'big government' must be the problem, absolving assholes like Trump from any blame. Meanwhile, the "Deep State" that they fear so much is actually what is protecting them from absolutism.